


What Fruit Grows on a High Branch?

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:42:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21823105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Hannibal Lecter meets a mysterious older woman in Florence, whom may be the answer to a question he once asked Will Graham about certain fruit “on a high branch, difficult to reach” to quote Hannibal himself. Or does he? Perhaps Will’s imagination is contagious…
Relationships: Bedelia Du Maurier/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 13





	What Fruit Grows on a High Branch?

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place at the party in Florence in Antipasto where Hannibal dances with Bedelia when Bedelia is dancing with Professor Solignato. I’m picturing Evelyn Blackwood as looking a lot like Francesca Annis. I don’t own Hannibal, but for the past several months, it has owned me. :)

“Poor Dr. Fell.” Hannibal felt the presence of the older woman, older than Bedelia, the crisp softness of her British accent brushing against his ears. “All this luxury, your current accolades cannot distract you from your distraction.” She lifted a glass of prosecco to a mouth that quirked in a familar smile, filled with mockery which failed to hide the sorrow. “It hurts me deeply since all of this is my design.” 

Did he have to see him, hear him, feel the empty echoes of him wherever he went, places Will Graham had never been? This party was supposed to distract him from Hannibal Lecter’s broken heart, draw him deeper into his new life as Dr. Fell. Instead it only made the dull ache within throb and grow. 

“Is it?” He turned with a polite smile to the strange woman, whom carried herself like an aristocrat, yet dared to be so hauntingly familar. 

“Oh, yes. This entire layout, the lights, all of it.” The lady glanced around at the illuminate tree, the ballroom floor before returning her attention to him. “You should have seen what I did to the docks in New York City. Those lights were my pride, although many considered them tasteless.” She allowed her red lips to twist out of their smile, just for a moment. “Including my former husband.”

Once again the mention of docks brought back an echo of Will Graham, along with the word “tasteless”. 

“I doubt anyone could accuse you of being tasteless.” Hannibal Lecter studied the strange woman over the rim of his glass. Dark hair peppered with gray was swept on top of her head, the silver complimenting a gown which clung to a figure which still had its curves for all her face was lined with experience. Not cares, not worries, but experiences. Different, yet similar to Will Graham’s. 

“Oh, I’ve been accused of many things.” The lady lowered her glass. “The good professor is positively subtle in insulting you, compared to what I’ve had to listen to, believe me.” She lifted an eyebrow. “He hasn’t accused you of being a monster yet, although being a non-Italian might be worse.” 

Hannibal chuckled, amused out of his melancholy. “And has he accused you of being a monster, Signora…?”

“Blackwood. Evelyn Blackwood. You’ll find me on the list of patrons on the rather dull placard hidden behind the exhibit announcement.” Evelyn Blackwood saluted Hannibal with her glass. “And nothing the good professor has accused you of is worse than anything my late husband accused me of.” She let out a light titter, which sounded slightly forced. “I’m not sure if he ever told our child the truth of our relationship.”

A light almost seemed to flash before his eyes, perhaps similar to whatever Will saw, right before his imagination took him back, retracing the steps of a killer.

A child, a little boy with dark hair, shaking the body of a man lying on the ground, much as a young man had once shook over the body of Abigail Hobbs. Hannibal recognized the child, the sorrowful innocence in his eyes flickering in the face of the scene before. 

The child looked up at the woman, a younger version of Evelyn Blackwood, if indeed that was her name standing over the body, much as he, Hannibal had once stood over Abigail. 

“Why?” The little boy’s lips formed the word, gasped it out. 

“Because.” The lady cocked her head, not quite smiling. “This is my design.”

The light faded. Hannibal almost blinked in surprise, studying the woman in front of him, here and now. 

Was that what Will always experienced, when he retraced the steps of a killer, learning their secrets? He’d watched the younger man so intently, the way his eyes moved behind his closed lids, trying to catch a glimpse of the landscape his beloved hid within himself. Only Will couldn’t see the face of whomever he hunted. Evelyn Blackwood’s countenance, so similar to Will’s own, was only too clear. 

“What truth was that, Signora?” A bold question, but the lady had volunteered the information. 

“The quagmire of what most people consider normal, healthy behaviour is far murkier than abnormal behaviour.” Evelyn Blackwood lifted her glass to her lips once more. “And yet for all the judgments my husband showered upon me, he couldn’t stay away from me. He might do his best to estrange me from our child, but he couldn’t do it himself.”

“Did he succeed?” Hannibal took another sip from his own glass, glancing at her. “In separating you from your child.”

“He might have. I haven’t seen our son since he was very young. He’s a complete mystery to me.” She gave him a sly, sideways glance. “Unlike you…Dr. Lecter.”

For a moment, she let his secret breathe between them. Hannibal savoured the tension, allowing it to perfume the air even as she did. 

No one else seemed to notice. Bedelia lifted her head for one moment to glance in his direction, giving the lady with him a sharp look before returning her attention to the professor she danced with. 

Hannibal let himself grow very still and simply studied her. She gazed straight back at him with the same intentness. 

No question about it. This lady was a predator like himself. It appeared Jack Crawford wasn’t the only one who’d married his mother. For Hannibal felt very much like he was wedded to Will Graham, body and soul, even though he’d left him behind. Even though he was now posing as Bedelia’s husband. 

And now he’d uncovered another one of Will Graham’s secrets. 

“Tell me,” she said with casual interest, as if her revelation and her current words were of no import. “How is Will? Is he a lot like me?” Bright eyes, filled with luminous curiousity, similar to her son’s fixed themselves upon him. “Or does he cling to morals as his father once did?”

Hannibal didn’t have time to answer the question. Professor Solignato approached, hand in hand with ‘Lydia Fell’. 

“You appear distracted, Dr. Fell.” Professor Solignato gave him another intense gaze of malignity, even as he dropped Bedelia’s hand. Here was another Frederick Chilton, pompous in his certainty and insecurity. “Lost in the hells of Dante?”

Hannibal turned to look in the direction of Evelyn Blackwood, only to find she wasn’t there. 

Curiouser and curiouser. Was Will Graham’s imagination contagious? Or did he miss his prize patient, his former plaything so much he was constructing fantasies about Will’s lost mother? 

It would have been intriguing to have met her in this time and place, yet somehow not surprising. Will Graham had secrets, secrets Hannibal Lecter had yet to uncover. 

There he went again. He was trying to start a new life as Dr. Roman Fell. He needed to let go of Hannibal Lecter, along with all his obsessions. 

Along with Will Graham. Especially Will Graham. 

The problem was Hannibal Lecter didn’t want to. And Hannibal Lecter was very much whom he still was. Roman Fell was just a mask. A well-tailored mask meant to go with a life he’d always dreamed of living, but still just a mask. 

“Perhaps I am.” Hannibal smiled back at Solignato, only too aware of Bedelia’s troubled scrutiny. 

She’d know or guess at the source of distraction. She always did. 

Not that it mattered. She knew what he was. She’d wanted to observe him up close, see how he behaved in the wild, in a new setting. To get to know the core of Hannibal Lecter behind the person-suit she met him wearing, and the new mask he hid behind now. 

Poor Bedelia. She had no idea what she getting into. No one ever did. 

No one, except perhaps Will. 

Hannibal felt his smile falter a little.


End file.
